- The official press release from AMS.
- The Seattlest’s Jeremy Barker focuses on the effect on Seattle presses.
- Matt Wagner suggests that consolidation may not be good for small presses, even if PGW’s huge volume allowed for independent presses to get into big-box stores.
- Sarah points to the Canadian impact.
- At The Beat, comics publisher Actionopolis/Komikwerks offers a response. Shannon Eric Denton and Patrick Coyle relay their attorney’s thoughts: AMS is looking for a buyer, but that a “fresh start” will enable any new company not to take on the debt. So they may be more attractive now than they were before the bankruptcy filing.
- Dean Haspiel: “BOTTOM LINE: in order to succeed, the author has to become the publisher and the publicist and, sometimes, the printer, too.”
- Time Out New York is looking into the story.
- At the Engine, Heidi MacDonald asks people how the AMS bankruptcy will affect them. Among some of the highlights: Warren Ellis insists that HarperCollins will not get the advance back for his second novel and Comic Relief owner Rory Root pointed out, as Soft Skull’s Richard Nash suggested in the first AMS post here, that pennies on the dollar is the likeliest prospect for the creditors.
- Colleen Doran suggests that Dark Horse was expecting big money from Frank Miller’s 300. [UPDATE: In the interests of accuracy, it remains uncertain what degree of output Dark Horse had with AMS, but hopefully we’ll have more information on this soon.]
- Unrelated to all of this, but perhaps indicative of the current publishing climate is the Independent Press Association ceasing operations. (Thanks, Dan Wickett, for the link.)
bwt cld day in aprL, clks 13
Wired: “Chaco is becoming one of the most popular mobile phone novelists in Japan. We don’t know much about her — except that she’s a twenty-something Pisces from Osaka — but we do know that she can spit out books faster than Danielle Steel. In the last 14 months, she wrote five novels, including her best seller, What the Angel Gave Me, which has sold more than 1 million copies to date.” (via Michael “Two Shades” Orthofer)
Pelosi Becomes Speaker; Issues OK for Comedians to Make Fun of Liberals Again
The Katrina Horror Lives On
Jenny D breaks some terrible news. In an ongoing New Orleans homicide epidemic, five people were recently killed in 14 hours. They included filmmaker Helen Hill and Paul Gailiunas, a doctor who helped low-income patients. (UPDATE: Paul did not die. My apologies. He was shot, but remains in stable condition.) I didn’t know these two, but Jenny vouches for them as good people and I believe her. The thought of people being murdered because that Bush and FEMA view New Orleans as a problem that will eventually go away is enough to make me want to destroy something.
The End of 2006
2006 ended many days ago and I sorta miss it. Like other years, it contained twelve months. And like other years, I feel compelled to serve up more Best Of lists, even if I don’t quite know where to start. The problem with any year is that you read too many books, listen to too many albums, attend too many shows, and watch too many movies. It doesn’t leave one exhausted, at least not while it’s happening. But at the end of the year, when all of this media consumption is tallied like a Central Park West socialite’s dry cleaning manifest, it becomes a bit too much to grapple with. And then some silly nostalgic force, operating like a peer pressure you can’t quite track, demands that all culture vultures offer Best Of pronouncements, generally in some predetermined and agreed upon format (Top Ten!). But by the time you get around to it, it’s too late. We’re in January. You should have been here back in December when we were really happening. When it was still 2006. When your opinion still mattered.
So instead of dragging out the posts I’ve been laboring on for the past few weeks, I’ll just let you fill it in. You can either print off this post and tape it to your refrigerator filling in the blanks. Or you can leave recommendations for everyone in the comments. That way, everyone’s happy and I won’t feel so guilty.
TOP TEN ALBUMS OF 2006
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TOP TEN MOVIES OF 2006
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